Accessible Solitaire

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What new types of solitaire would you like me to consider later in the year for the Accessible Solitaire app?

All usable aspects of the Accessible Solitaire games have come about thanks to feedback from players. In fact the app only exists because someone asked if I’d be building a Klondike solitaire app. And since I built it, I was asked if I could add a Pyramid, Tri Peaks, and Baker’s Dozen game, so they’re all in the app now.

But when I added the new games, from a software development perspective, the games were rather squeezed into the app which had only really been designed to handle the Klondike game. So while the new games generally seem to work ok, the whole app is now not as robust as players need it to be. For example, when dealing cards or resuming an earlier game, it can take a while for the game to be ready to play, and sometimes dealt card piles might not appear at all and the app needs to be restarted. And I’ve yet to publish the Baker’s Dozen game for Android, as the game doesn’t work on that platform yet. All in all, I need to spend the next couple of months reworking the app’s code to make to more robust now and into the future.

During this time, if I add any new features, they’ll probably be very small ones which require few code changes.

But hopefully later this year the app will be ready for more significant updates, including potentially adding new types of solitaire games. And with that in mind, I’d be very interested in hearing from you as to which solitaire games you’d like me to add. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to add the games, but I can at least try.

A couple of players have already suggested the following four solitaire games which I’ll consider:

  • Spider Solitaire.
  • FreeCell Solitaire.
  • Royal Parade Solitaire.
  • Leap Frog Solitaire.

If you’d also like me to look into adding any of these games, or would like me consider other types of solitaire, please do let me know.

Thanks!

Guy

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5 responses to “What new types of solitaire would you like me to consider later in the year for the Accessible Solitaire app?”

  1. Daniel Parker Avatar
    Daniel Parker

    Perhaps it’s too similar to Pyramid, but I especially like Baroness solitaire. It works similarly except that there are only five card dealt piles in the game total. Fourteen Out and Gay Gordon (adds up to 11) are also good. I’d also suggest looking into the Golf family of Solitaires, where you are trying to discard everything onto the waste pile by building one rank higher or lower than the top card. Overall though, I really enjoy this app and I salute all the hard work going into it! Thanks a lot!

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    1. Guy Barker Avatar
      Guy Barker

      Hi Daniel, thanks very much for all these ideas. I’ve currently just started working on adding another solitaire game called Royal Parade, suggested by another player. Before too long, I really do need to take a break from adding new games to the app, and try to fix some of the existing problems in the app. (I’ve listed some of those https://accessiblesolitaire.com/2026/02/18/accessible-solitaire-known-issues.) But your ideas do sound really interesting. Perhaps once I’ve finished Royal Parade (assuming I manage to get that to work), I could work on one of the games you’ve mentioned, and then after that start working on some of those know issues in the app. Given that you said you enjoyed Baroness Solitaire and Aces Up Solitaire, perhaps I should try to add one of those?

      Thanks also for letting me know that you enjoy playing the app. Typically if someone contacts me about the app, it’s because it’s not working right, so it’s nice to know the app’s behaving itself for you!

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  2. Daniel Parker Avatar
    Daniel Parker

    A couple more: I used to enjoy playing aces up, where the objective is to finish the game with aces showing on the top of each card pile. I’ve also heard that Grandfather’s Clock (easier) and Clock (hard) are interesting, because they start with a random card, rather than the ace or king, to build foundation piles.

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    1. Guy Barker Avatar
      Guy Barker

      Hi Daniel, I’ve just published a version of the Accessible Solitaire app which includes a new game (Royal Parade) suggested by a player. I’m hoping to add one more game, one of the ones suggested by you, before I stop adding more games and spend a few months trying to fix some of the problems in the app, and to make it more robust. You mentioned quite a list of games I might consider, so thanks again for that. I’ve just done a quick search for these games as I’ve not heard of any of them before, and at the moment I’m thinking of adding Grandfather’s Clock solitaire. The main reason for that is that Wikipedia says the chances of winning are around 3 out of 4 games, and I really want the game I add to not be frustrating to play. I think a couple of the existing games in the app are so time consuming and difficult to win, no-one’s going to want to play them. If whatever game I add next is winnable more than 50% of the time, maybe players can get used to app by playing the game, and decide later if they want to try out other games.

      Another reason I’m heading for this app is that it got me thinking about an old app I built for my Dad, which showed a picture of his grandfather clock. I discussed the accessibility of the app at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-world-lessons-building-accessible-wpf-apps-guy-barker. All good fun.

      My main uncertainty around building the Grandfather’s Clock game is that it seems like a lot of screen space is needed for the twelve cards laid out in the circle, plus the eight piles of five cards. The cards might end up being so small on a phone screen as to be unusable for some players, despite being usable for players using screen readers with swipe gestures. Well anyway, I’ll look more closely into what it would take to build the game and see what happens.

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  3. Article: Accessible Solitaire? Honestly, what was I thinking? – Accessible Solitaire Avatar
    Article: Accessible Solitaire? Honestly, what was I thinking? – Accessible Solitaire

    […] months of tidying up the code and turning the app into something more robust. Mind you, someone at What new types of solitaire would you like me to consider later in the year for the Accessible Solit… did suggest a few more games I might add. I’m sure I could squeeze just one more game into the […]

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